The Silences of Home

by The Silences of Home (v5. 0) (epub)

  “Are you sure?” Lanara asked when the Queensguard brought him to her. She was alone in her writing chamber. It still surprised him to find her this way, without Malhan lurking by the door.

  “Yes,” Leish said.

  She bent to throw another log onto the fire. The nights were cool; the water would be cold. “At least reconsider my offer,” she said, straightening to face him. “Let me send you in a boat.”

  He felt the webs bunch between his fingers. “Why? So that your people will be able to see the final mercy of the great Queen Galha? One more exciting display for the crowd?”

  “No,” she said, high and angrily, “so that you won’t die of exhaustion before you reach your land.” She sat down and ran her hands back and forth over her short hair. “Leish,” she said, looking at him with her hands still on her head, “you’ve been a prisoner for years. You haven’t had water in nearly one of those years. You haven’t swum anywhere, except in a fountain, since your army arrived here. This journey may be too much for you.”

  “Yes,” he said, when he had thought of the words he needed. “But I would rather die swimming beneath the sea than travelling upon it in a Queensship.”

  “Ah. Well, then . . . When, exactly, will you leave?”

  “Later tonight, or maybe tomorrow morning. I will try to sleep a bit before.”

  “Good. Have me woken when you’re ready.”

  He licked his lips. They were always cracked, even when he soaked them in fruit juice or rubbed them with cooking oil. He felt a tiny crack open now, and spoke before he could taste the blood. “I will leave alone. Please.” He cringed at the catch in his voice. And so I beg her? he thought; then, I am free because of her. He yearned for one simple feeling.

  Lanara walked to the window, sat down on the bench beneath it. She could not look at Leish. He’s leaving, Ladhra, she thought. He loved you, and he’s leaving. “Very well,” she went on, angling her head so that she could almost see his face. “Go alone.”

  “Thank you.” He lingered. His fingers were clenched, the webs folded motionless between them. He did not move, but she saw his longing. He would run from this room. “For this,” he said at last, “and for the other things.” His left foot shifted, as if he were feeling the purple band of scar around its ankle.

  She nodded and bit her lip. “Go,” she said. “Go now, Leish.” He did, with a slow turn and slower steps that nonetheless seemed to blur with haste.

  Lanara sat alone until the harbour lanterns were lit. As she watched the little fires bloom, the door opened.

  “Lanara.” She did not move except to shift her gaze to the right, toward the smudge of cliff and the wavering glow of the signal tower there.

  “Lanara. Crelhal tells me that the selkesh man was with you.”

  She smiled, blinking against the glare of hearth- and candle-flames. “Yes. He’ll leave tonight or tomorrow morning.”

  Malhan frowned, and she felt her muscles tighten. “Why did you not inform me right away? We’ll have to keep him here until at least midday tomorrow. By then the escort ships will be in place—three of them, I think—and the word will have had time to spread. You should wear a bright robe and walk to the end of the dock with him—”

  “As drums beat and horns blare?” Lanara rose. “No. He’s asked to do this alone, and I’ve agreed. He’s been made a spectacle too many times before.”

  “In chains, yes—a prisoner, an object of hatred and ridicule. Now he’ll be a symbol of Galha’s forgiveness, bestowed through the people’s new queen. You know this is why we came to Fane so soon after you assumed the throne! We are here to provide your people with proof of the wisdom of their queens—”

  Lanara laughed. She bent over, braced herself against the desk until she had finished laughing. “He said that,” she gasped when her breath had returned. “Almost exactly that. He knew what kind of spectacle we’d try to make of him this time. I’m sorry, Malhan. It’s too late. My word is given, and I won’t take it back. So please,” she continued as he began to speak, “let’s talk of something else. Our own departure, say. I’d like to leave as soon as possible—maybe in a week, after I’ve met more of my subjects. And I’d like to make one additional stop upriver.”

  “Oh?” A small, jagged word.

  She nearly smiled. “There’s something I have to do in the shonyn village.”

  “Oh, Lanara”—a kind tone now, thickened with regret—“you’re not still pining for the shonyn man?”

  “Nellyn. And yes, I am. I intend to ask him to come back to Luhr with me.”

  Malhan strode over to the desk. “Impossible. Now is the time for choosing a consort-scribe, not dallying with men who are not even of Queensfolk stock. Surely you can’t imagine that the shonyn man could be your consort-scribe? Lanara!”

  “I’ll change the law of Queensmarriage. I’ll say Galha recommended it—we’ve changed so many things already.”

  Malhan laid his fingers on her bare forearm. “I’ve told you we must be prudent. If we alter too many of the traditions that have bound our people for so long, they will become unsettled. The law of Queensmarriage will remain. We will return to Luhr and seek out an appropriate consort-scribe for you.”

  “We!” she cried. “We, we, we! You manipulated Galha’s life and death. You won’t do the same to mine.”

  He called her name once as she ran to the end of the corridor. Two Queensguards scrambled after her and she cried, “Do not accompany me! Fall back!” She swept through the courtyard and out into the street beyond. Too bright, too crowded. She veered into a darker laneway, glad now of the plain linen tunic she had worn today despite Malhan’s protestations.

  She heard footsteps when she paused in the shadows of another deserted alley. Hard leather soles on cobblestones; not even the river’s muted roar or the rasp of her own breath hid the sound. She slipped around a building and watched the street behind her until two men jogged into view. She saw the ribbons that fluttered from their sleeve-ends, knew that these ribbons would be blue and green. Malhan’s men, she thought, sent to spy—and she ran faster, into twisting streets and through empty tunnels. If she was lost, then so were they—and it would serve them right. She turned onto a path that sloped downward and waited for a glimpse of the harbour.

  The wharf was slippery beneath her sandals; she had to lean against a house to regain her balance. It was the house at the end of the wharf, beyond the lanterns and the docks. She looked back the way she had come and saw no one, heard no pursuing footsteps. Even so, she ran again, along the last few feet of wharf and up onto the smooth round stones of the cliff path.

  She slowed after she rounded the first bend. Fane and its glow were invisible, but the moon was rising, and the path before her glittered. She followed it, more slowly now that she was sure of her solitude. By the time the path became earth, her steps were dragging. She climbed up, up, her head as light as her feet were heavy.

  The signal tower was dark below, ablaze at its top. Lanara stared at the blur of candle fire and metal until her eyes ached. She imagined knocking at the door, striding into the kitchen. “I am your Queen. I am here to scrape tallow from the lightroom floor.” She imagined the log entry that would follow, and the wobbling of Drelha’s second chin as the wrote it: Visit from the new queen. Poor woman, not quite right in her mind. Previous queen much more queenly. Lanara ground her palms into her closed eyes as she laughed.

  When she returned to the path, the wind was higher than it had been. She pressed herself against the rock and thought of Nellyn’s fear, which had always made her forget her own. She would walk behind him again, with her hands on his shoulders. She would kiss the back of his neck when he faltered. . . .

  The wind tore at her tunic. She felt the flesh on her arms and legs pucker and rise, and wondered at how quickly the night had turned cold. She clung to a rock spur as she eased herself around a bend. She took one sideways step,
and another. Pebbles slithered down the slope above and ahead of her. She watched some fall down into empty air and others land on the path, and reached out her right foot to step over them. She heard a harsh scrabbling, very close. A shadow detached itself from the cliff above her. She saw it for one long moment, hanging against the darker sky—and then it was arms and a face and the flash of teeth, and a knife.

  “My Queen,” said Baldhron.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Leish could not sleep. He lay on his back, his side, his belly; he squeezed his eyelids shut and opened them, hoping they would drift closed on their own. By the time he finally acknowledged that he was tired but not the least bit sleepy, the moon was beginning to rise. He sat up. He listened to the singing of the water that would greet him, and he breathed with it, let his muscles loosen and lengthen as they would in that water. When he opened his eyes again, the moon was high and bright.

  None of the Queensguards he passed spoke to him. One of them glared at him; another smiled; most stared past him. He looked at their faces because they were the last of their kind that he would see. He swung his arms as if this would help him move more smoothly through the air that pressed against his skin.

  He stopped when he came to the main doors. Malhan was standing alone before them, his arms rigidly crossed. Leish waited for a moment, flexing his fingers and webs. The salt water would sting for the first few days beneath; his flesh was nearly as tender as a drylander’s.

  “I must pass,” he said when his gaze did not prompt Malhan to stir. Still Malhan stood and did not speak. “Malhan, let me pass.”

  Galha’s consort-scribe smiled. “I could have made you a dead symbol, you know, instead of a living one. I very nearly did. It took me many days to decide how best to use you.”

  Leish ran his tongue over his lips. They would pain him the most, on the journey home. “So,” he said, each Queenstongue sound forced, “you wish me to thank you for my life? Your Galha knew: there are worse things than death. I have no thanks for you.”

  Malhan’s smile thinned. He stepped away from the doors, keeping one hand on the wood. “Go, then, Sea Raider. Go back to what’s left of your land.”

  Leish reached his hand past Malhan’s and tugged at one of the door rings. He looked only ahead. Perhaps Malhan stood in the open doorway and watched him, or perhaps the door closed behind him—it did not matter. Worse things than death, Leish thought, and yet the wind is gentle and the water is close, and I am almost happy. He decided to walk directly to the end of the longest dock and dive from there, since this would likely annoy Malhan if he was watching. But after Leish had taken one pace onto the damp wood, he reconsidered and turned toward the southern cliffs. He and Mallesh and all the other selkesh had arrived in this land without being seen; Leish would leave it the same way. And in any case, a long, deep dive into open ocean would be preferable to a shallow drop into a harbour full of Queensships.

  He climbed the cliff path quickly, even when the wind began to buffet him. It moaned, this high up, grasping at edges of rock and sky. He listened to it, and to the singing beneath it. Soon he would reach a place where the cliff side fell sharply away; he had noticed this when Galha had brought him this way. It had been snowing then, and he had been half-numb from cold and weakness, but he remembered the spot. Soon, he thought, as the seasong swelled in his ears.

  He was nearly running when he heard the voices. They were Queensfolk voices, louder than wind or water. He slowed and heard whose they were. Dive, he thought, flattening his back against the cliff. You’re done with their kind. Dive now.

  “What do you want?” Her voice trembled, and Baldhron dug the knife’s edge a little deeper into the skin of her throat.

  “I want you to beg,” he said. She tried to turn away from his spittle, but he forced her head up and straight. “I want you to weep and bleed. But not until after you’ve learned of the treachery of all your queens.”

  She smiled, a glinting line above the knife. “Then I’ll have to disappoint you, for I won’t beg or weep, and I already know about this treachery. Galha’s, anyway. Perhaps you’d explain that of her predecessors?”

  Not right. He shook his head, which ached from the pressure of height and wind and the nearness of a queen after his long solitude. Drenhan, give me strength and wisdom. Help me remember the words that I’ve waited an age to speak. . . .

  “I will tell you,” he said. “And there may be some details, even about Galha’s reign, that will surprise you.” He shoved her back against the rock so that she would be within reach of his knife, but not so close that he would feel her breathing or her skin. These things would distract him, kindle a desire for flesh and death before it was time.

  He began with his mother and their cave and the kind Queensman who had praised the boy Borwold and given him watered wine. He had almost gone back there after his escape from Luhr. He had fled north through the desert, thinking only that he would go home, find his contact there, begin again, with the few scrolls he had taken and the many more he would write. But after some days had passed, he had realized the peril of this plan. He would be a hunted man, and the Queen would surely send her first search parties to his old home. Not yet, then, he had thought. I’ll seek out my people in other places—but very soon this idea too seemed foolish. The Queen would offer a rich reward for his capture. His renegade-scribes were principled men and women, many of whom were also poor. Who knew how easily avarice would triumph over principle? So he had pressed northward alone, expecting to hear hoof beats at his back. He crept into town at night, stole whatever food he could. His hair and beard grew thick, but still he did not show himself, certain that someone, somehow, would recognize Baldhron, the traitor who had killed the Princess.

  Lanara frowned as he told her of his mother’s fever and the dive that had twisted her body to its death. A frown of concern—he looked away from it, at the sheen of his blade. Her pity would enrage him as Ladhra’s had. Speak quickly, he thought. Be clear: she must understand the filth of her station before I take her body and then her life.

  His words were clear, now that he had been talking for a while. He had practiced them over and over both aloud and in his head. He had ordered and reordered them, like coloured stones that he would fashion into a vast, blazing pattern. It was all he had had to do after he had crossed the northern border of the Queensrealm into the sweep of tundra beyond. He had learned to hunt, learned to sew ragged hides and pile stones against the wind. He had watched distant lines of people and pack animals wending across the waste, and seen their smoke against the stars. The words had accompanied every one of these activities. He was nearly as wild as the tree-horned deer he pursued—except for the words, which returned him to his library, and to the cheers of his followers.

  “Leish!” he had cried one morning. His breath had hung white in the air, and frost had cracked beneath his fur-wrapped feet. “Should have killed him too! He’s the one who told the Queen it was me. He’s the one who led her to my library, my realm. . . .” He had fallen to his knees, scrabbled at the lichen-crusted rock beneath him until his fingers bled. Only the words about lying queens, caves, folded notes, underground tunnels kept him from madness.

  There had been a purpose to it all. He had not recognized this in those first months, as he struggled to survive, but with the swift, scurrying departure of winter came understanding: It is not done. I must return to Galha, and she must hear me and die, even if I die with her. I must return to my people, who will write the victory of my end and hers.

  And so, just under a year after he had crossed the Queensrealm’s northern border, he crossed it again. He had discarded his hide clothing before he entered the border town, and shivered in his ragged Queensman clothes, washed and mended for this occasion. He had tied back his hair and combed his beard as best he could, though it was still matted and rank. “I’ve been alone,” he told an old woman sitting in front of a tiny stone hut. “I’ve been suff
ering from love scorned.”

  She had nodded at him and smiled a toothless smile. He glanced around at the other dwellings, some stone, some deerskin stretched over wooden frames. He saw two children jumping on a frozen puddle, and a dog chewing at an end of bone.

  “Where,” he had said carefully, “are the Queensfolk who oversee this place?”

  The old woman had squinted at him. “Gone, save one. They all answered the Queen’s call to battle, months ago now. None’ve come back. Killed, I expect, in that accursed land past the Eastern Sea.”

  “What. . . .” He had had to clench his hands to keep them from shaking. Had cleared his throat to make sure that his words were curious rather than desperately eager. “What battle was this? I’ve been away from the world, you see—utterly alone, deprived of news from this great realm. Please tell me, grandmother.” And she had.

  “Queen Galha’s sick now, they say,” she had finished. “Sick in her bed in the palace, and who knows if she’ll recover.”

  By the time Baldhron was a week away from Luhr, Galha was dead. He had seen mourning banners draped over a well and heard the details from a traders’ caravan the next day. He had been bold about his inquiries since the border town. He had yet another new name—but no one would know “Baldhron,” in any case; there had been no public hunt. Leish was the murderer, and now Galha was dead and it was Queen Lanara Baldhron would kill, after he had tormented her with truth.

  It had all been so easy once he had discovered she was travelling to Fane. The city was overflowing with discarded market food; he was never hungry as he waited for the right moment. After some consideration he had decided to seek out his Fanean contacts. He had found only one: an orange-haired girl of fifteen whose renegade-scribe father had died (“Of old age, not Queensfolk interference. I’m sure of this.”) the previous summer, and whose mother had died birthing her. “The rest fled,” the girl, Predhanten, told him after he had convinced her of his identity. Her green eyes were wide and terrified as she looked from the Luhran scrolls to his face. “We all thought you dead in the attack on Luhr,” she had whispered, and he had laughed.